A U.S. government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen in Feb..The laptop was stolen from the locked car trunk of a researcher who is employed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.(File Photo)Photo Gallery>>>

WASHINGTON, March 24 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. government
laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients
enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen in February, The
Washington Post reported on Monday.

This data security accident potentially exposed seven
years' worth of clinical trial data, including names, medical diagnoses and
details of the patients' heart scans. The information was not encrypted, in
violation of the government's data-security policy, according to the paper.

The laptop was stolen from the locked car trunk of a
researcher who is employed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
(NHLBI), one of the many institutes of NIH.

"Although the laptop was turned off and password
protected, so that retrieving the confidential information would require
considerable computer sophistication, the NHLBI recognizes that such information
should not have been stored in an unencrypted form on a laptop computer," said
the statement issued by NHLBI.

However, it was reported that NHLBI officials did not
send letters notifying the affected patients until last Thursday -- almost a
month later.

This accident is the latest in a number of failures
by the U.S. government employees to properly secure personal information. This
month, the Government Accountability Office found that at least 19of 24 agencies
reviewed had experienced at least one breach that could expose people's personal
information to identity theft.